AUSTRIAN GP WHAT MERC CRASH TANAK DENIED SURPRISE 16-PAGE REPORT MEANS FOR FORMULA 1 WORLD RALLY VICTORY HAMILTON WINS… ROSBERG FUMES As Wolff threatens team orders “I don’t want contact anymore” FORMULA E FINALE BUEMI SURVIVES CLASH TO TAKE THE CROWN #%%'.'4#6' +0018#6+10 ÜÜÜ°>Û°VÉÀ>V} 5+/7.#6' '0)+0''4 /#-' 6'56 4#%' AUSTRIAN GP WHAT MERC CRASH TANAK DENIED SURPRISE 16-PAGE REPORT MEANS FOR FORMULA 1 WORLD RALLY VICTORY HAMILTON WINS… ROSBERG FUMES COVER IMAGES As Wolff threatens team orders “I don’t want contact anymore” Etherington/LAT; FORMULA E FINALE Charniaux/XPB; BUEMI SURVIVES CLASH TO TAKE THE CROWN Rajan Jangda/e-racing.net COVER STORY 4 Austrian Grand Prix report and analysis PIT+PADDOCK 20 FIA aims to boost motorsport worldwide 22 New manufacturers for Formula E 25 Feedback: your letters 27 Ian Parkes: in the paddock REPORTS AND FEATURES XPB IMAGES 28 Buemi takes Formula E title as Prost wins 34 Heartache for Tanak in Rally Poland 40 Suzuki: the sleeping giant of MotoGP Nico still struggling to RACE CENTRE 46 GP2; GP3; Blancpain Sprint Cup; NASCAR Sprint Cup; Formula get the balance right Renault Eurocup; IMSA SportsCar NICO ROSBERG JUST CAN’T QUITE GET IT RIGHT. WHEN CLUB AUTOSPORT it comes to wheel-to-wheel battles, he is either too soft or overly 65 Will Palmer to race in BRDC F3 at Spa robust. He usually comes off worst too, particularly when fi ghting 66 Crack Mercedes squad for British GT Mercedes ‘team-mate’ and title rival Lewis Hamilton. 68 New Jaguar series launched for 2017 It’s not diffi cult to see why Rosberg tried so hard to close the 69 Humble Pye: the voice of club racing 70 National reports: Brands Hatch; door on the last lap in Austria. As well as the obvious points that Donington Park; Thruxton; Mallory Park; victory would bring, he’s also been on the receiving end of Barbon Manor and Harewood pretty tough manoeuvres from Hamilton in the recent past. But most of Hamilton’s moves have been on the exit of FINISHING STRAIGHT corners, when cars naturally drift wide. Last year’s US GP 78 What’s on this week aside, his moves have tended to be just on the right side of the 80 From the archive: 1968 French GP line. Rosberg’s Red Bull Ring defence was crucially on the run 82 Have-a-go hero: Mike Conway into a corner and, as a result, seemed rather more blatant. AUTOSPORT SUBSCRIPTION OFFER More worrying for F1 fans is that Mercedes is now seriously 48 Sign up and get a FREE McLaren-Honda looking at team orders. That would be a disaster in terms of off icial team T-shirt spectacle, as the Hamilton-Rosberg tension has been one of the most interesting elements in F1 since the dominance of the Silver Arrows began in 2014. It would be a great shame to see that end, but also easy to understand Mercedes’ FIND US ON decision if it did act to avoid further broken W07s. Speaking of broken, I was saddened to see the Formula E title autosport.com fi ght nearly end with a dubious clash. At best, Lucas di Grassi’s move was clumsy in an Alain Prost 1989 Suzuka manner. At worst, twitter.com/autosport it was a cynical takeout in the style of Ayrton Senna in Japan in ’90. facebook.com/autosport instagram.com/autosportdotcom/ youtube.com/AUTOSPORTdotcom the Apple App Store KEVIN TURNER EDITOR digitalmagazine.autosport.com [email protected] Apple News @KRT917 JULY 7 2016 3 Mercedes battle boils over again By Ben Anderson, Grand Prix Editor @BenAndersonAuto XPB IMAGES F1/AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX REPORT Last-lap clash left Rosberg nursing a broken wing… HOW TO RECONCILE THE BURNING INDIVIDUAL AMBITION OF TWO elite Formula 1 drivers with their team’s imperative to achieve the best collective result possible, without imposing a directive that will neutralise the sporting spectacle to which they all have a duty of care? It seems Mercedes may have finally reached the point at of seconds behind Rosberg. Hamilton lost a second to a slow which it feels that this delicate balance of disharmony can left-rear change, but that made little difference to his situation no longer be maintained, after Lewis Hamilton and Nico at this stage. He’d gone 11 laps further than Rosberg on his first Rosberg collided while fighting for victory on the last lap set of tyres, so strategic advantage seemed his. of the Austrian Grand Prix. Then Sebastian Vettel’s right-rear tyre exploded on the main This collision provided the thrilling denouement to a race straight as he began the 27th lap. After five laps spent behind the that seemed Hamilton’s to lose from the start. He had pole; safety car the race resumed. Hamilton tracked Rosberg closely, Rosberg started down in sixth thanks to a grid penalty; and remaining comfortably within two seconds of the leader, with Jenson Button’s high-flying McLaren-Honda providing knowing his team-mate would have to stop again. an early buffer to the pack, everything seemed to be falling “At a certain stage we changed opinion,” added Wolff. “We Hamilton’s way early on. felt the two-stop was actually the safer way to finish the race. But the race came back towards Rosberg when it became This was why we converted and brought Lewis into a situation clear that his two-stop strategy was actually quicker than that put him behind Nico [in the final stint].” Hamilton’s planned one-stopper. Hamilton was within 1.254s of Rosberg when he came in for “Lewis was ahead on the road and the one-stop seemed to a second time on lap 54. His stop was again slow (the front-left be the better strategy for the leader,” explained Mercedes team stuck this time), and after Rosberg made his own second stop boss Toto Wolff. “We weren’t sure how far Ferrari would go a lap later he emerged ahead, thanks partly to Hamilton’s delay and whether they would try a one-stop, so we kept him out. and partly to a poor out-lap from the reigning world champion “His times were competitive in comparison to the two that i ncluded a m ista ke at Tu rn 2 . Ferraris. We didn’t care so much about Nico and the Red Bulls, Had Hamilton been cleaner on his first lap with that final set because they were on a two-stop.” of soft tyres, and had he not suffered two separate delays at his Hamilton emerged from his pitstop on lap 21 of 71 a handful stops, perhaps this race would have ended very differently. 6 JULY 7 2016 S BLOXHAM/LAT XPB IMAGES As it was, Hamilton now had 16 laps to chase down the sister then not get the exit, but I managed to keep my shit together and …and Hamilton Mercedes. Max Verstappen’s Red Bull actually led at this stage, do the corner just as I did previously and got a really good exit.” celebrating 2016 win on account of seeing out the sort of one-stop strategy Mercedes After the helter-skelter of the previous 70 laps it all came number three had abandoned with Hamilton. down to this. Hamilton slipstreamed Rosberg on the drag up Rosberg swept past on the outside line into Turn 3 to retake the to Turn 2, but Rosberg covered the inside. lead w ith 10 laps to ru n, a f ter Verstappen had spi rited ly defended Hamilton went for the outside line and moved ahead as the the inside line into the hairpin at Turn 2 and run Rosberg wide. two cars reached the braking zone. But Rosberg chose to make Hamilton had to wait two more laps before making a pass of his an unusually late attempt to turn into the hairpin, squeezing own on the Red Bull, blasting by on the run up the hill towards Hamilton to the outer edge of the circuit. that same hairpin as they both lapped Jolyon Palmer’s Renault. Hamilton attempted to continue his trajectory around the They finished lap 63 with Rosberg leading Hamilton by 1.517 outside of Rosberg’s car, but they made contact, which spat seconds. Hamilton complained over the radio about having Hamilton into the run-off area on the outside. He skated across to chase Rosberg down using a harder compound of tyre than the grass and rejoined the circuit, just as Rosberg’s front wing his rival, but in actual fact it was Hamilton’s choice to pick folded underneath his car as a result of the collision, allowing one fewer set of super-softs for this grand prix compared Hamilton to slip past into Turn 3 and take victory. to Rosberg, and Mercedes clearly felt 17 laps on the ultra- Rosberg limped home fourth, losing further positions to soft was a risk too far. Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen as the Mercedes left a trail Ultimately it mattered not. Hamilton tore after his team-mate of debris on the circuit. a nd w ith th ree laps to go closed to w ith i n ha l f a second. Late-race Wolff slammed a desk in the Mercedes garage in frustration. traffic threatened to thwart Hamilton’s efforts, but starting the Then the inquest began. final lap there were still only six tenths in it, and Rosberg was “I drove as wide as possible within the white lines so I left clearly struggling, fighting against the fact that his brake-by- a larger space – three cars could’ve come on the inside wire system had overheated and slipped into what Mercedes there,” said Hamilton.